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Monday, February 6, 2012

Mewtwo EX & Gardevoir

Gardevoir is my 3rd favorite Pokémon

Hey all The
Deck Out followers!

This entry is the second entry of Mewtwo EX based decks – in each entry there
is a new Mewtwo EX based deck, which has been played in Japan. I’ll be posting
these entries once a week and if I don’t have something more important as the 2nd
update of the week, both of my week’s entries will be about Mewtwo EX based
decks.

Mewtwo EX is probably the most hyped card of all time before its release. When
I released the Eye on Japan: Part 1 to SixPrizes, I didn’t expect the hype to
get so high. I’m very sad that Troll&Toad take an advantage of my articles
and hype it generated and it has been making me think of the future of Eye On
Japan articles and their contents. I encourage everyone not to pre-order their
Mewtwo EXs since the tides have already turned in Japan and as I said in my
Pokegym post, Mewtwo EX is no longer the only good deck in the format. And I
really hope that the get ratio of Mewtwo EX will be high/they will also make it
as a promo card.

Mewtwo EX is obviously a good card but there are ways around it. However, as we
all know – the best Mewtwo EX counter is Mewtwo EX itself so that’s one of the
reasons it’s almost a must in every deck. Even if your strategy doesn’t fully
rely on attacking with Mewtwo EX, you should still have it as a counter against
your opponent’s Mewtwo EX.

Anyways, let’s start with a skeleton list of the first Mewtwo EX –based deck – Gardevoir.

As everyone who
have read my Eye on Japan: Part1 know, this was the third placing deck in one
of the Japanese tournaments where Mewtwo EX took all the top4 places. However,
how does it exactly work? Well, the combo is pretty simple. Gardevoir’s ability
makes every Psychic Energy attached to Psychic Pokémon count as two Psychic
Energy. This means that every Psychic energy attached to Mewtwo EX counts as a
DCE. However, it also means that Mewtwo can sometimes use its second attack as
well. This is a huge difference because no other Mewtwo EX deck uses its second
attack.

Since the deck’s only attacker is Mewtwo EX, you must make the most of it.
Start attaching energy to Mewtwo EX in the first turn and attach the energy
until you do enough damage. This deck can probably do enough damage with only 2
Psychic Energy so you can start attaching energy to the benched Mewtwo in the
early game as well. This is very important because this deck has no kind of
energy acceleration. You could try teching in a 1-1 Jirachi/Shaymin but I don't think it will make the deck that much better. Of course you can try it out nonethelss. If you aren't running these two it’s fully relied on manual attachments, which is why it probably only reached the 3rd place in the Japanese tournament.

As I’ll reveal in the final list of the deck, this is one of the most straight
forward variants of Mewtwo EX decks and its main goal is just to kill the
opponent before he/she has no chance of recovering. This is the reason why this
deck did do ok in the tournament even though the idea first seems like a Theme
deck idea (just like 6 corners).

Card Explanations

Mewtwo EX

Should I make an
article about this card just like I did with Junk Arm? Yes, no? Yes. Mewtwo EX
is one of the best cards in the format and it’s a staple in almost every deck –
just like Junk Arm. Not only it’s a staple but it’s a main attacker in many
decks. However, in this deck it’s the ONLY real attacker, which makes it super
important for this deck.

In this deck, Mewtwo EX uses the attack which is more suitable for the
situation. If you need to deal high damage quickly, you’ll want to use the
second attack of Mewtwo but if you need to attack only for low damage or your
opponent has a lot of energy attached to it, you can use X-Ball.

There is one great thing about Gardevoir and its effect. If played correctly,
you can avoid oh so familiar counter KO by your opponent’s Mewtwo EX. If you
have 2 energy attached to Mewtwo EX(which coutns as 4 energy thanks to
Gardevoirs ability), and discard an energy with Mewtwo’s second attack, you
only have 2 energy on Mewtwo meaning that they need 3 energy to OHKO you if you
have Eviolite attached to yourself. There’s a huge difference with a simple DCE
counter KO and 3 energy counter KO. However, as I’ll reveal later on the
article, things can get even better when correctly played.

Gardevoir

Gardevoir is the
companion of Mewtwo EX in this deck. 3-1-3 line is enough because all you do is
sit on the bench while loading and attacking with your Mewtwos. In some rare
occasions you might want to attack with Kirlia (a good Mewtwo EX counter
sometimes) and in some even rarer occasions you want to attack with Gardevoir.
However, most of the time Gardevoir just doubles the Psychic Energy on Mewtwo
EX and that’s about it. Remember, Gardevoir’s ability don’t stack so you only
need 1 Gardevoir at a time in play.

Cleffa

A great starter
with free retreat cost. It also helps set-upping Gardevoir in a quick manner. Cleffa has been analyzed so many
times that there is no reason for getting deeper with it.

Pokémon Collector – Pokegear 3.0.

Once again, this
should be already a common knowledge. Pokémon Collector is a must in every deck
and it’s THE trainer to get in T1. Japanese lists also like to play lots of
Pokegears to increase the chance of T1 Collector and to increase consistency.
I’ve always liked Pokegear very much and in my opinion it was one of the most
underrated cards of the HGSS- on format in the early season. However, it seems
that the consistency is in high value in the western nowadays as well.Sage’s Training – Professor Oak’s New Theory

This is a pretty
unorthodox combination of draw cards even in my opinion. Usually you see only
Shuffle and draw and Juniper or only draw and discard engines. However, in this
deck the decision not to run Juniper is justified. This deck resembles me of
any stage2 deck like Ross, Gothitelle and etc. You want to get the Candy ASAP
but at the same time you’re not willing to discard your every card. Sage’s gets
you just the right cards and PONT gets you the right cards time to time.
However, the real reason why PONT is here is for the mid and late game
consistency. It’s a hand refresher like no other in this format and works very
well in any of this format’s decks. Pokémon Communication

I have hard time
believing that 2 Communications is enough for getting the Gardevoirs but the
original Japanese list of this deck run zero Communications and no balls. Communications
only purpose is to get the Gardevoir from the deck as soon as possible.

Junk Arm

All hail The Great
Junk Arm.Eviolite

Eviolite is a very
important card when it comes to Mewtwo EX mirrors. Mewtwo EX is a high HP Basic
Pokémon so Eviolite works wonders with it as long as normal Pokémons hit it.
However, usually the reality is different. Mewtwo EX is most easily countered
by another Mewtwo EX and Mewtwo EX OHKOs another Mewtwo EX almost every time. Eviolite
goes very often in vain on a Mewtwo EX but in this deck it might just do the
work it’s ordered to do as I’ll explain later on.

Pokémon Catcher

Well, Pokémon
Catcher is just broken as we all know. Mewtwo EX is a very good early sniper
with Catchers and in this deck you can get an easy prize lead with a bit of
disruption added to it thanks to Catcher. If your opponent is stupid enough to
play a Mewtwo EX on the bench, you can also just Catcher it and thank him for 2
free prizes. You and your opponent don’t want to play a Mewtwo EX on the bench
if you don’t attack with them.

Switch

Switch is a very
important part of this deck because you want to start attacking with Mewtwo EX
in T1. Your opponent may also try to disturb you by Catchering Gardevoir to the
active Pokémon position. You don’t want to waste the manual attachment for
retreating so Switch is your best and only bet in this case.

Energy

I won’t go too
in-depth with these energy because I’ll so you the two different builds you can
build from Gardevoir/Mewtwo EX and they are both running different kind of
energy lines due their different strategies.

Three different approaches to the skeleton list

As promised, I’ll
now reveal to different point of views to this deck. The first one is faithful
original Japanese list and the second and third one are my own versions. Let’s
take a look how these lists look like.

4x Double Colorless Energy
9x Psychic Energy
=13As you can see, not
much of the change can be seen from the original list. This deck is just pure
beat-up deck. Get a T1 Mewtwo EX and start X-Balling things. I dropped one
Eviolite since in this deck it really doesn’t serve the purpose – Mewtwo will
be OHKOed still by other Mewtwo and nothing else can’t really even OHKO it in
this format. You either win by speed or don’t win – this was the philosophy of
the original list.

I also added Tyrogue for the early KOs and possible donks. As you can see the
list now has 4 PlusPowers, which are there to guarantee the OHKO of everything.
As long as you are fully relying on Mewtwo EXs as the main attacker, you must
be able to OHKO anything that comes into your way.
This deck is straightforward, effective and fast but it has problems if your
opponent is able to keep up with your pace. That happens if they’re playing a
fast deck like you or you’re having a slow set-up. As funny as it is, Durant is
a horrible match-up for this deck. You can’t set-up Gardevoir because they will
just drag it in the front and without Gardevoir your game plan is completely
screwed. Lost Removers and Crushing Hammers take care of the little energy you
attach to Mewtwo.

There are some very interesting changes here. I added one Terrakion in a place
of Mewtwo EX and added few Fighting Energy. Also, I took away things like 4
PlusPowers and added Eviolites and Defenders. So what’s the goal of this not
that aggressive version? You still use your Mewtwo EX as the main attacker and
Terrakion works as tech against Fighting Weak Pokémons. The reason for all this
is that all these cards gives you an edge against Mewtwo EX mirrors. It’s
pretty simple, they can’t OHKO you that easily but you can OHKO their Mewtwo
EXs any time.

Psydrive is the winning attack here. Whenever you have fighting and psychic
energy attached to Mewtwo, you can use Psydrive to discard the Psychic energy.
Why Psychic? Since after that it only has 1 energy attached to it. Armed with
Eviolite and Defender, your opponent’s Mewtwo EX would need total of 5 energy to OHKO you back. I can
guarantee – that doesn’t happen every time. Letting Mewtwo EX live one more
turn gives you an huge edge in the game and will win you games.

I couldn’t afford taking any DCEs off the list because they’re still broken
with Mewtwo EX. As long as you need to attach energy manually to Mewtwo, you
need to use DCEs to win any other Pokémon than Mewtwo EX.

As you can see this
deck has the only card that can keep Mewtwo EX from being easily OHKOed by
another Mewtwo EX – Leavanny. Leavanny takes away each of your Pokémon weakness
when it’s in play, and if you are able to get it into play, Mewtwo EX becomes
almost unstoppable. The weakness of Mewtwo EX is its biggest weakness and taking
it away is a great asset. However, we must stay realistic, Leavanny is a stage2
Pokémon and getting two Stage2 Pokémons set-upped without a trainer lock is a
very difficult job to do in this format.

The draw engine of this deck is pretty normal compared to the two previous
version but I wanted to add Pichu and Twins here because they help a lot
getting 2 stage2 Pokémons set-upped – with or without Trainer lock. If you’ll
run into a direct Mewtwo EX mirror with this deck, you’re in a very good
position and probably will win the game.

How good this variation really is?

So, is this THE
Mewtwo EX deck that will win everything and be the tier1 deck? Probably not but
it can challenge almost any deck in the format. Even though it has problems
with some of the current format’s decks (e.g. Durant), it can very well
challenge the new Mewtwo EX decks that will rise due the release of Next
Destinies.

This deck has problems when having a slower start or if it’s disrupted too
much. That’s the reason why Durant is an autoloss. The deck is very fragile
when it comes to set-upping but once set-upped it can win any deck. Which
version to play then? If your metagame is full of Mewtwo EXs, I would suggest
the second version with Terrakion or the third list with Leavanny. If your
metagame is still young or no one has gotten Mewtwo EXs yet, I would suggest
running the first version. It’ll overpower most of the current metagame’s
decks.

Conclusion

This variation
won’t be the most dominating Mewtwo EX deck in the format but it will surely
see at least a little bit of play. It has its weaknesses and strengths but is
difficult to build correctly and to play correctly against the most difficult
match-ups.

I hope you enjoyed the first part of the series and as promised, there will be
a new Mewtwo EX article coming at least once a week. Feel free to ask any
questions or comment on any matter of this article.

27 comments:

As Japan always get the cards first, its common to know which decks may rule, but western players tend to innovate japanese decks (as shown before in 6 corners, etc).We'll see soon how the future looks, since states are coming (in the countries tht run them) and there we will see new brews of pre-existing decks and totally new decks.

Mewtwo EX will help define the metas, as long as tournament results start appearing.

When you said about teching Shaymin, first thing that came to mind was Gigas EX. Technically, it could be a safer energy holder than Mewtwo and can counter if catchered, but I don't know if it would be any good though.

Since you touched on it, I believe it was totally unfair to you that companies like TnT and others marked up their prices just because of the hype, but I'm sure most if not all your readers won't ever blame you for it. Just companies being the damned companies they are I guess. I totally support not pre-ordering Mewtwos, but getting booster boxes instead, as it is more reasonable than ever. I managed to pull a Mewtwo EX at pre-release, but as always 1 will never be enough to play this variant or others.

As I support not buying the Mewtwo preorder as well, you also have to keep in mind that Mewtwo EX seems to have been pulled in half of the booster boxes opened so far. Take your chancess with that 50%, but I am definetly ordering a few boosters. (Thats with each box averaging about 3 EX's, one of those being full art)

To be fair, in order to run a business you need to know the supply and demand and adjust your prices accordingly.... Now we all know why mewtwo EX is getting alot of hype (if you dont just look at the card i mean really?).

Are the prices justified? no. Is the reason behind a increase in price justified? Definite yes.

What about using Smeargle as a starter for Mewtwo EX decks that run Skyarrow Bridge? It gets free retreat, lets you double supporter on first turn, and makes a great Emolga-type card for mid-game with a skyarrow bridge out. It also doesn't get donked by opposing Mewtwo EX thanks to it's 70HP.

Mewtwo seems to have a pull rate of about 0.8 per box, from what we've seen so far, and is overhyped in competitive as well as Durant runs over every Mewtwo variant I've seen, and none of them have AMAZING Magnezone matchups as they need a pluspower to OHKO Magnemite with a DCE. Most are also allergic to the steady storm of N and Judge that both decks like to throw around.

Expect to pay $35 for Mewtwos in a sane world, with the full arts varying by local popularity. I still haven't seen a Mewtwo deck that beats my somewhat-crazy Thunderdome without a hot start.

As you all saw from me Facebook update, I didn't pull a single Mewtwo EX from two boxes so yeah, I hope that Mewtwo EX won't be too overpowered in the western metagame even though it's highly possible.

Crawdaunt: Smeargle is nice but it will never be as good as Cleffa because Smeargle is a bit risky whenever your opponent has N/Juniper/Sage's Training in their hand. That's why I still prefer Cleffa in every deck, drawing should be consistent at all times, not risky.

you mentioned durant a lot in this article. i was wondering what the hypothetical matchups are between durant and the mew2ex decks mentioned. (for example: 25/75 durant's favor) i just want to know for states in a month to see what to play.

These examples were made w/o switch/potion. So its possible to fight. And Mewtwo EX is tech against itself, so, i think its pretty fair to say that Chandelure still lives.The other tech is Cobalion NV, since Special Metal Energies are legal as with Eviolite, so its perfectly a pretty good tech

Anonymous1: I guess this deck's match-up depending on variations are somewhere between 60-40 and 80-20 in Durant's favor.

Luffymcduck: Indeed!

Anonymous & Elias: Yeah, I think Chandelure is viable against Mewtwo EX deck but Chandelure has still problems with Durant. And Durant is also a good deck against Mewtwo EX. The aoffensive version of Chandelure don't have to change anything to work against Mewtwo EX decks. hitting 100 + abilites and burn&Confuse, Mewtwo EX is easily killed by a Chandelure. Chandelure can still take the easy prizes from Celebis,Eelektriks etc. so you don't have to kill 3 Mewtwo EXs to win the game and that's what made Chandelure good in the first place.

Anonymous: Thanks! The winning deck was Zekrom/Eelektrik/Mewtwo EX and the 2nd place was Celebi Prime/Mewtwo EX if I remember correctly.

Has anyone really looked into Darmanitan "Zen Mode" ND im not sure but i think it is a great counter to mewtwo ex as you can knock it out in just two flips of heads out of up to over 5 flips. I'm not sure if this will work but I have added them to my leafeon/Espeon Prime Deck. Any suggestions on wheather this will be a good counter or not?

Jacoby: I think Darmanitan is a great Mewtwo EX counter in a right deck. To get it working very well it will surely need Fliptini to back it up. Also, I think it will work the best in a deck with energy acceleration like Eelektrik/Zekrom or ReshiPlosion because that way you can easily load a lot of energy on it in just one turn.

That's true I put two into my Celebi prime deck. It runs Gardevior as an accelerator. I'm also running about three double colourless and 2 interviewers so I don't have to worry about not having the energies. I definitely need to get a fliptini and I'm thinking about a vileplume in order to avoid pokemon catcher. What do you think?

Don't forget Electrode Prime as far as Darmanitan goes. With the likes of Collector/Level Ball/Heavy Ball, you can be pulling off an Energymite for a Darmanitan with Victini on the bench by T2 if you are running fairly consistent lines (4-3 Electrode, 3-3 Darmanitan, 2 Victini, 4 Collector, 3 of each ball). If you drop three or four energy, the odds of not OHKOing Mewtwo EX are very slim with Victini there. Just have to be careful about this strategy is there is another Mewtwo EX on the bench. Perhaps a Shaymin might be able to help in this way, assuming they don't drop another Mewtwo, promote him, and attach a DCE in one turn.

magnezone/eels wrecks this deck. there no way to OHKO a magnezone and they can easily catcher-kill gardy. or just go for the 4 energy 2 prizes off mewtwo. i really doubt this deck since if you knock out gardevoir this deck really struggles. struggles soo much its funny.

Can I ask, does gardevoir's ability count as 2energy for mewtwo x-ball attack?like I got 2 psychic energy on mewtwo,but with gardevoir's ability,my energy on mewtwo will turn 4,so the x-ball attack will become 80 instead of 40